Survival Guide for K-12 School Students Visiting UMD Libraries

Welcome to the University of Maryland Libraries! The following pages will help you learn about and navigate the campus libraries. Enjoy your time with us!

About the University

As the largest university library system in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore area, the University of Maryland Libraries serve 37,000 students and faculty of the flagship College Park campus. The University of Maryland Libraries share the teaching, learning, and research goals of the University.

With collections including 3.7 million volumes and more than 350 databases, we serve the needs of the academic community. Our operating budget is $23.7 million. Seventy-five percent of our materials budget is allocated to electronic resources.

We benefit from being situated within minutes of the nation's capital and its departments, agencies, and research centers.

Maryland ranks 50th among 115 libraries of the Association of Research Libraries.

How Academic Libraries Differ from K-12 School Libraries - Academic libraries (libraries on university and college campuses) differ from your high school library. Not only are university libraries generally larger, the classification system, type of materials, and scope of the materials will be different, as well.

Classification - Academic libraries use the Library of Congress call number system whereas grade schools generally use the Dewey system.

Types of Materials - Academic libraries do not only have books, they also have scholarly articles, newspapers, reference materials, digital collections, special collections, electronic resources, and government documents, among others.

Scope - The collections housed by academic libraries cover a variety of disciplines, including all of the subjects covered at that institution, as well as related topics. All of these subjects are covered in depth, giving students plenty of resources to choose from.

The University of Maryland Libraries are rich in print, online, and nonprint resources. These materials are housed in seven libraries on the College Park campus, as well as one located in Rockville, MD: